| #### Chapter 6 |

| #### #### We are led thus to the question of receptivity in things of body. #### An additional proof that bodies must have some substratum different from themselves is found in the changing of the basic-constituents into one another. Notice that the destruction of the elements passing over is not complete- if it were we would have a Principle of Being wrecked in Non-being- nor does an engendered thing pass from utter non-being into Being: what happens is that a new form takes the place of an old. There is, then, a stable element, that which puts off one form to receive the form of the incoming entity. #### The same fact is clearly established by decay, a process implying a compound object; where there is decay there is a distinction between Matter and Form. #### And the reasoning which shows the destructible to be a compound is borne out by practical examples of reduction: a drinking vessel is reduced to its gold, the gold to liquid; analogy forces us to believe that the liquid too is reducible. #### The basic-constituents of things must be either their Form-Idea or that Primal Matter [of the Intelligible] or a compound of the Form and Matter. #### Form-Idea, pure and simple, they cannot be: for without Matter how could things stand in their mass and magnitude? #### Neither can they be that Primal Matter, for they are not indestructible. #### They must, therefore, consist of Matter and Form-Idea- Form for quality and shape, Matter for the base, indeterminate as being other than Idea. ####  |